No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government
Clive Lewis Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Some Conservative Members have been calling into question the motivations of the Opposition in calling this no-confidence vote. Let us be clear that yesterday’s vote was not just a defeat but a complete and utter rout. Some Members have talked about historical parallels, but if yesterday’s vote had been a battle, it would compare with the battle of Cannae, in which Hannibal annihilated the Roman army. It was a textbook defeat, just like last night was a textbook example of arrogance and hubris in government.
Last night’s vote aside, let me run through the myriad reasons why the Opposition and I have no confidence in the Government. In-work poverty is at 4 million people, and homelessness is soaring. Yesterday, we learned in Norwich and Norfolk that 38 of our 53 children’s centres are being closed. Why? Because Norfolk County Council says that the Government’s cuts are forcing that to happen. It was a day of complete shame in my city. Without a hint of irony, the Government, while closing down our children’s centres, have declared Norwich an opportunity area as they attempt to improve failing social mobility. It is a policy akin to attempting to fill up a bath with no plug.
In education, schools face real-terms funding cuts. In The Guardian today Norfolk County Council, in the media again, is under fire from the local government ombudsman for failing to address concerns and look after children with special educational needs.
On mental health, after the Prime Minister personally promised to improve that Cinderella service, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has been put into special measures again—that makes three times in four years, which is a first for any trust in the country. In this day and age, real-terms funding is down by 13% but demand is up by 50%.
Let me deal with an issue that the House and, in particular, the Government have failed to adequately address: the impending climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss. Above all else, given the timescales we are talking about, this is a calamity waiting to happen, but the Government are comprehensively failing on it. Time after time, we hear the greenwash from Conservative Members that they will do what it takes on the environment. They slashed solar subsidies, with 9,000 job losses; and fracking has been announced, put forward and is now actually happening, and not just in this country—they are also doing it in China, with taxpayers’ money. The climate science tells us that we need to leave that gas in the ground—80% of it—and that this cannot happen. In the words of that legend of Norwich, Delia Smith, I say to those on the Government Benches, “Let’s be ’avin’ you.” Let us have that general election. Let us have that vote. Support this motion.”
EU Exit Negotiations
Clive Lewis Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
We have been working and are very clear, on the issues we have developed, that there will continue to be that trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. I responded a little earlier to another hon. Member in relation to the impact of any regulatory requirements that there are as a result of the UK-EU-wide customs territory. I was also clear about the changes that we have brought about—on approvals, for example, for companies to be able to sell and have business between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was one of the commitments we gave in December, and it is a commitment that continues.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I am sure the irony has not been lost on the Prime Minister that exactly 80 years ago another Conservative Prime Minister came back from Europe waving a piece of paper and claiming success—I believe the exact words were “peace for our time”, and it was Neville Chamberlain. Given that there is no peace on the Conservative Benches and that the Prime Minister does not command the support of the House, will she tell us what the options are—a general election, a people’s vote, or a hard Brexit cliff edge?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman will have heard the answer that I have given to other Members of the House. When the deal is brought back from the European Council to this House, it will be up to individual Members of the House to determine whether or not they believe it is a deal that they can support in the interests of their constituents and in the national interest.
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry
Clive Lewis Excerpts(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is humbling to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) and her powerful words. What a difference it makes having a Labour MP in that constituency to speak up for the voiceless and those without power following this tragic incident.
Many of us still find ourselves unable to comprehend the shocking fire at Grenfell Tower—the tragedy that so perfectly captures our deep national, political and social crisis. The Grenfell fire is also a symbol of the systematic running down of institutions that we all need. Inevitably, as those systems begin to break down, the poor and vulnerable are the first in line to experience that failure.
We need high-quality journalism and a properly funded legal aid system that allows ordinary people their rightful protection under the law. We need properly paid public sector workers, and local government with the resources and power to do what is needed—not just act as a rubber stamp for Westminster. Of course, it is critical that today we focus on the detail of what went wrong at Grenfell, but I would also like to make two short points that argue for wider action—the kind of action that never ends.
The institutions that have a critical role in preventing disasters and clearing up the mess when things go wrong do not exist by accident. If they are run down, we reach the point where we—the lawmakers in this place—are daily exposing families and communities to unacceptable risks. When that happens, as it has for too long, we are culpable because we have pushed systems and people to the limit. I stand here today with friends on the Opposition side of the House to say that we will fight hard to end the relentless running down of multiple civic functions. No longer will that be done in our name. It looks to me as though the country is with us in that endeavour.
It is clear that both local authorities and the fire service were heavily relied on, both before the Grenfell tragedy and in dealing with the aftermath as it unfolded. So far there are only a few buildings of concern in Norwich, but a small and diminishing army of public sector and housing association workers doing their jobs day in, day out, with diminishing resources and morale, have had to deal with the fallout from Grenfell. Too often, those workers have too little power and too few resources to regulate the private sector in the public interest. Of the six blocks being tested for flammable cladding in Norwich, five are in the private sector.
What, for example, is being done to check privately owned student halls of residence? Will the Minister address the fact that many are now privately owned and managed? How can the Government and the universities ensure that such residences are checked for flammable cladding and that the highest safety standards apply? Can they confirm that student halls are classed as “other residential buildings” and are therefore subject to weaker requirements for sprinklers? If so, will the Government consider closing that loophole?
On a similar note, parents rely on their children being safe in our schools. The Government had been planning to change the regulations on fire safety in schools, removing the expectation that most new school buildings would be fitted with sprinklers, on the basis that school buildings do not need to be sprinkler-protected to achieve
“a reasonable standard of life safety”—
the Government’s own words. Since the Grenfell fire, Ministers have hinted that those plans will rightly be abandoned. Can they make their position absolutely clear to the House?
Schools in Norwich are suffering particularly badly from Government cuts and are threatened with the worst settlement in Norfolk under the proposed funding formula, although we are waiting to find out whether and how that will ever be implemented. Can the Minister tell us whether any central funding will be made available for essential safety work, so that those schools do not face yet more unfunded costs from the Government?
I turn back to the local authorities, which have been subject to 1,000 unnatural shocks in funding and changes to their ways of working. To name but one, there is the Government’s mandatory 1% rent reduction, which, at a stroke, reduces Norwich City Council’s ability to repair and improve its ageing housing stock by an average of £7.4 million a year. What is the reality of that mandatory rent reduction? There is less investment in our council housing stock, and council activities such as the daily safety checks carried out on our high-rise blocks are put at risk. In Norwich, we are fortunate enough to have a Labour-run city council that makes sure that those safety checks happen, but like many other local authorities, my council is coming up against the physical limits of what it can do with its resources, which have been cut year after year by this Government.
It is not just our local authority that is struggling to maintain safe standards. Our fire services—the men and women whom we are rightly so quick to applaud for their bravery—also have concerns. Whole-time firefighters earn less than £30,000 a year, so the Labour party welcomes the fact that the 1% cap was not imposed on their new pay offer. But there is a catch. Given that there has been no confirmation of how this will be funded, firefighters are concerned that the money will come from the service itself. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul will not improve anyone’s safety. The Government must understand that the ongoing funding cuts to our institutions and to those who work so hard for them are critical parts of the Grenfell story. Reversing them is essential to prevent another tragedy.
Advisory Committee on Business Appointments/Ministerial Code
Clive Lewis Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ben Gummer
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said. As ever, he speaks a great deal of sense. In a former age, he would have been granted many thousands of rolling acres just for making that point. Perhaps that is one loss for all of us.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Let me declare an interest as a former NCTJ—National Council for the Training of Journalists—qualified journalist and a member of the National Union of Journalists, which I hope the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) will be joining in short course. Much has been made of possible political conflicts of interest, but will the Minister also address potential commercial conflicts of interest, especially given that the Treasury is one of the biggest spenders on newspaper advertising—the sum is about £2.5 million? Will he commit to publish details of that expenditure?
UK's Nuclear Deterrent
Clive Lewis Excerpts(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Let me take this opportunity to welcome the Prime Minister to her role.
It is stating the obvious that opinion has been sharply divided in today’s debate, just as it is that that was exactly the Government’s intention. As the Chilcot report clearly demonstrated, when we make decisions of war and peace—of life and death—based on political posturing, assumptions and poor evidence, the results can be catastrophic. There are few decisions more important than the future security of our country and weapons that could kill millions, so I, like most Members, want to see a world without them.
The question, then, is how we achieve that while ensuring that we have a defensive capability that is fit and proper for the 21st century. My personal scepticism about the current proposal is based on concerns about military utility, economic cost and benefit, and whether it is part of a genuine multilateral approach. Many of my hon. Friends have pointed to the position agreed by the Labour party conference in making a perfectly reasonable argument for a continuous at-sea submarine-based nuclear capability, though I would add that the policy also acknowledged a multilateral path to ultimate disarmament. Since that conference decision, a review has been instigated. Perhaps more importantly, we must take account of other developments, not least Brexit, in holding the Government to account today. The Government could have chosen to address that, and the other concerns that I and others have traditionally had, with clear answers; instead, they chose to divide rather than unite.
Let me be clear that I, for one, do not believe that this is about patriots versus pacifists, or who is moral or immoral. No matter what our differences, we all speak to what we think is best for our constituents and our country. That is certainly true of all Members who have contributed today. Many represent communities with a particular stake in this debate. I applaud, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), whose tenacity in standing up for his own community’s interest is second to none.
We heard a great speech from the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), the knowledgeable Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who described Trident renewal as a political weapon surplus to the needs of NATO. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) quoted Bevin’s famous comments about the need for an independent nuclear capability. However, as Labour Members know, Nye Bevan said:
“It is…not a question of who is in favour of the…bomb, but…what is the most effective way of getting the damn thing destroyed.”
He too was a multilateralist. Meanwhile, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) invited us to come to his bedroom to see his large weapon—defence establishment at Aldermaston.
Last week I replied to the Secretary of State after his statement concerning the recent NATO summit. I spoke of NATO’s values: international co-operation; military force for defence, not aggression; mutualism and the sharing of risk; opposition to tyranny; and the defence of democracy. Those values are deeply held by Labour Members. It is no coincidence that two of NATO’s founding Governments were led by the new deal Democrats and the Labour party.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I do not want to interrupt the thread of my hon. Friend’s important argument, but may I bring him to the text of the motion and ask whether he shares my concern about the phrase,
“for as long as the global security situation demands”?
We have just had the Chilcot report, which reminded us that we are not safe if we do not uphold international rules and obligations. I, for one, would be very glad to hear from the Defence Secretary, and from my hon. Friend, what concrete steps are going to be taken to uphold our commitment to multilateral disarmament.
Clive Lewis
I will come to that issue later in my speech, but the motion as it stands calls into question the Government’s integrity in holding up the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Whereas the values that underpin NATO’s formation are timeless, the decision that the United Kingdom should build and maintain its own nuclear weapon system was a strategic military and political decision made on the basis of specific considerations at the time. Making a similar consideration is the task that falls to this House today. Unfortunately, the Government’s timing is wrong and they have fallen short of that objective.
The previous Prime Minister said that today’s vote was to “provide certainty”, but the Government motion does not do that, because it does not change anything. We simply have no more detail. Every indication is that this is a ploy that the Government repeat at will to avoid discussing critical issues. They then create the very uncertainty that they claim to be addressing. If that is not the case, the Secretary of State can very easily say so. There are no new costings in the motion. It used to be said that the Tories knew the value of nothing but the price of everything, but now they do not even know that. If there are any specific commitments to particular contracts, or if any are provided through today’s vote, perhaps the Secretary of State could list them.
The Government’s motion also asks us to endorse their record on multilateral disarmament. Many of us in this House are serious about multilateralism as a policy, not a soundbite. What have this Government, as opposed to previous Administrations, actually done to promote multilateral measures since last year’s non-proliferation conference failed to reach agreement?
The line between unilateralists and multilateralists is too often exaggerated. Surely if we can agree that our goal is for a world free of nuclear weapons, the question is: how do we get there? International agreement is not impossible. The last Labour Government deserve great credit for their role in the international treaties on cluster munitions and landmines. We therefore ask the Government to show real leadership, focus on our shared goals and give us a vision of how we can achieve them.
The motion also considers Trident renewal in isolation from, rather than in the context of, defence policy as a whole. Only last week we discussed the Chilcot report. He recorded a catalogue of equipment failures and their human cost. I know what it is like to be under enemy fire, needing air support and being told that none is available. Conventional forces remain our first form of deterrence against Russian aggression, and they defended our territory the last time it was invaded, in the form of the Falklands.
We need urgent assurance that spending on our nuclear capability is not made at the expense of conventional military equipment. In the past six years, the MOD has seen its budget suffer a real-terms cut of 9%. The number of attack helicopters has been cut by 21%; frigates and destroyers by 17%; fighter aircraft by 25%; and main battle tanks by 41%. The size of the armed forces has been cut by a fifth, and the MOD civilian workforce by almost a third, while carrier strike and maritime patrol craft have been axed altogether. To maintain one single capability at the expense of losing many others would not strengthen our defence, but weaken it.
Costs are critical. The MOD’s equipment plan has been left reeling by last month’s Brexit decision. That is not my conclusion, but that of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy. The implications for the defence budget may be profound, but we have had no clarity from the Prime Minister today. Where is it? Will the Secretary of State please tell us what assurances he has that the defence budget will be maintained in real as well as proportional terms?
Similarly, the motion asks us to, in effect, endorse the Government’s defence industrial strategy. Let me be clear that we cannot allow the devastation that happened to industrial communities in the 1980s under Thatcher happen again. Retaining a workforce with specialist skills is a matter of military as well as economic security. Those points have been made very clearly today by many Opposition Members and by the GMB and Unite trade unions, but neither they nor I endorse the Government’s defence procurement policy as a whole.
On current trends, 25p in every defence procurement pound is forecast to go to America by 2020. Given the consequences of Brexit for the exchange rate with the dollar, this urgently needs to be reviewed. Just last week, the Government announced a multimillion-pound purchase of nine P-8As and 50 Apache helicopters from America. When will the Secretary of State share with this House the detail to assure us that the deal will, in fact, secure British jobs in the long term? It is the same story on steel. The Prime Minister’s earlier words fell well short of any guarantee about the Successor programme.
The security threats that we face are many and fast changing. There are serious issues worthy of serious consideration. We have heard a range of views from across the House, and rightly so, because this is a complex issue. The biggest shock to our security, for many, has been Brexit. That resulted not from the actions of our enemies, but from the complacency and arrogance of our former Prime Minister and his short-term political game playing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Clive Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Mundell
I want to ensure that Nicola Sturgeon and her team are held properly to account in the Scottish Parliament, which is why I am encouraging people to vote for Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
6. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Ministers of the Scottish Government on withdrawal of funding for the carbon capture and storage scheme at Peterhead.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
I have regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Ministers of the Scottish Government on a number of important energy issues affecting Scotland. The most recent was last night.
Clive Lewis
The Government’s own advisers on energy and climate change have warned that the cost of meeting our climate change targets could double without Peterhead and CCS. Given that the Government are having a good run on U-turns when it comes to saving the Chancellor, perhaps they would also like to make a U-turn when it comes to saving the planet—something that people feel is far more worth while.
David Mundell
We are looking carefully at all options in developing our approach to CCS, informed by Lord Oxburgh’s CCS advisory group. In parallel, the Government continue to engage with the CCS industry—including Shell, which is leading the proposed Peterhead project.
Oral Answers to Questions
Clive Lewis Excerpts(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Q12. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Mental Health Trust, which serves my constituency, is refusing to publish the so-called Alexander report on its operation. The report, which I have seen, raises serious questions about patient safety and care owing to cuts to services. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the duty of candour should apply to NHS management as it does to NHS front-line staff? If so, will he join me in the call for the report’s publication?
The Prime Minister
First, let me welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. I make no apology for the Care Quality Commission’s rigorous inspection regime, which is identifying areas that need improvement. I would argue that the two things we need here are to uncover bad practice and turn it round, and then to back it up with the resources the NHS needs, including those recommended by the Stevens plan. As things stand, only this party is backing the extra £8 billion into the NHS—and not the Labour party.